


less bad things

by kunnskat



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: But also a fix-it, Christopher Plover Is His Own Warning, Gen, Murder, Not A Fix-It, Readable for Free on AO3, The Beast Is His Own Warning, The Monster Is His Own Warning, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:53:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23301943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunnskat/pseuds/kunnskat
Summary: What if one of the Gods with a part completely disappeared long before they could hunt him down? With no signs or hints or anything, they are forced to conclude that somehow he just no longer exists. The only option is to get him in the past and, bafflingly enough, the last sign of him was at that fucking Welters game back in Brakebills (did Quentin’s spell just remove him from existence back then, is that what happened? What the fuck?).
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater & The Monster
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8





	less bad things

**Author's Note:**

> Take a wild guess as to what fandom (pairing) I now live in. I watched season 1, fell in love with Queliot and now I live on AO3 and YouTube for canon and non-canon moments between these two incredible (dumb) people. 
> 
> Have I spoiled myself? Yes. Is it worth it? Also yes.

“Prove it,” he says. 

And then, right in front of the whole fucking crowd, alumni and students and teachers, there is the Beast in all his glory, moths swarming around him. The Beast - no, Martin, because Quentin knows better now and this is a monster he does not fear getting between people for - pauses, head tilting obviously, then there is a delighted whistle as it takes in the new setting. 

Fucking Welters, Quentin thinks to himself for half a second, Margo’s voice in his head. He’d laugh, maybe, if the timing wasn’t so fucked.

“I must ask, who do I have to thank for this delightful invitation?” Martin doesn’t seem to have noticed just whose control he is under now and if Quentin doesn’t think about everyone he’s hurt and killed, he might find himself feeling pity for the one that they all think is the Monster here. Is it better if they can keep that delusion? He doesn’t know, part of him doesn’t want to. But his own personal Monster friend won’t let them, not with everything else Quentin has watched him do. Helped him do. 

That’s about when Martin notices Plover frozen near the other competitors, which, fuck, Quentin doesn’t even remember who is. Fucking Welters, this is maybe the worst moment the Monster could’ve picked for them. Or, maybe he just thinks that because they’re in it. He’ll try to be grateful it wasn’t something else, later, if this doesn’t get too fucked. 

Martin goes to stroll towards Plover, eyes for no others at this moment, when he finally figures out that while he can move, he can’t go anywhere. He turns to the others in the middle of the stupid game, hands shaping a spell. 

“This is getting boring, Quentin,” the Monster warns him, the only one he’ll get. 

Quentin thinks about Alice, thinks about watching her try her best to kill this Beast and suffering so much to do it. He thinks about Eliot holding him as he stared at her body, thinking her dead and gone and out of his life. He thinks about fucking Jane Chatwin who’d forced them through lifetimes to kill her brother and he thinks about Mike who no one knows for sure were ever himself or Martin the entire time. 

He thinks about Eliot, who’d killed Mike because it’d been all he could do and it had broken him further, and the dagger in his hand that he knows will do the job is already leaving it. It’s going to kill the Beast like Jane and Henry hadn’t planned for but desperately wanted, but it won’t torture and break him like the Monster wants. 

That, Quentin thinks, is what Plover is for. 

Christopher Plover created the Beast, the problem in front of them, him and his sister. They’d broken and killed nearly every child (does Jane count? she’s alive now) that walked through their home and Quentin doesn’t believe they’d ever felt bad for any of it. In some ways he thinks he hadn’t been wrong when he’d thought Plover was the Beast. He is, in his own way. 

Eliot’s face looks impassively on as Martin crumbles onto the floor but he lifts a hand to intervene when Henry tries to do a spell. Quentin would stop him, but he’s in the motion of levitating Plover into the ground. Literally. 

“What do you interfere for? The one you wanted gone is already dead,” Eliot’s voice speaks, but there is a curiosity in there that is so far from what Eliot would sound like when genuinely curious. Quentin tries not to be distracted from it, but he is. It’s not that the Monster won’t notice, though, which should be the point. It’ll have to be a silver lining, that it looks towards him and Plover when the disgusting man tries to plead for his life. Every second counts towards keeping their spectators alive. 

It should be harder to force parts of Plover to move without the rest of him, harder to slowly crush him on the inside. He’s not all that powerful and he doesn’t know as much as most, but Quentin destroys this man like he’s a bug crushed under his sole. 

When he looks up, it’s to the Monster smiling, but the Eliot of this time looking horrified. Quentin doesn’t dare look at his past self. It’s fine, even if the other him thinks to try something. The Monster won’t kill this Quentin either. He’s mostly sure of it, and he’s willing to bet both their lives on it. 

The crowd that just watched him kill two people will probably not look favourably on the other him now, not unless Jane fucking Chatwin and Henry fucking Fogg actually for once bother to explain themselves. 

“Are we done?” he looks at the fake Eliot, still smiling at him. 

“We still need my part from that one,” is the response he gets back, along with a careless gesture at the first body they’d dropped upon their arrival. 

Quentin still cannot fucking believe a God had been watching the Welters game during his first year. It’s not the weirdest thing to ever have happened to him but at least this one had gotten himself killed before fucking over Quentin’s life somehow, originally. 

Though maybe if he’d lived far enough, they’d never needed to come here. 

How is he supposed to decide which options would be better if this one results in a dead Martin before it can result in a dead Alice, and what if this keeps them from the Monster? They’re not all good things but they’re sure as fuck less bad things. 

Quentin dares to glance at Penny while the Monster cheerfully sticks a hand into the God and hopes the man is listening when he thinks as loudly as he can to not fucking trust Jane Chatwin. The way Penny stares back at him makes him think that maybe for once he succeeded. Fillory can manage on its own now that those two aren’t there to fuck it over.

**Author's Note:**

> Before I get any comments about how things work in killing Gods and/or Martin, or possibly even Plover, let me remind you that this is fanfiction and thus does not subscribe to canon. I don't actually know what was needed in canon. This is my quick wishful thinking, please just go with it.


End file.
